Latest news with #SequoiaResources
Globe and Mail
4 days ago
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Coalition files appeals against Alberta Energy Regulator over orphan well clean-up costs
A coalition of Alberta landowners, scientists and others has filed a regulatory appeal against the province's energy watchdog, arguing that the agency has consistently failed to collect enough money from oil and gas companies to cover the substantial cost of cleaning up orphan wells. The group, called the Coalition for Responsible Energy, has filed two appeals against the Alberta Energy Regulator. One is a regulatory appeal. The other is a reconsideration, a rarely used tool that asks the AER to reconsider the amount it collects from industry for a cleanup fund. If the AER fails to do so, the group says, it will launch a legal battle through the Alberta Court of Appeal. The application has been made on behalf of Dwight Popowich, who for the past 26 years has lived on a 75-acre parcel of recreational farmland near the town of Two Hills, roughly 140 kilometres east of Edmonton. Alberta wants to accelerate cleanup of oil and gas wells with taxpayers as backstop, document shows Sequoia Resources Corp. drilled a well in the middle of an alfalfa field on his land in 2008. That well stopped producing in 2012. Six years later, the company said it was ceasing operations, and would be unable to cover the cost of looking after or cleaning up its more than 3,000 wells and pipelines. But it wasn't until Jan. 30 of this year that the AER directed the Orphan Well Association, which manages oil and gas sites that don't have a legally or financially responsible party, to take control of the company's assets – including the well in Mr. Popowich's alfalfa field. 'They walked away from cleaning up the well on my land and thousands of others. We don't know if the well is safe. We don't know if it's leaking. Nobody's showing up to even take a look at it,' Mr. Popowich said Tuesday. 'Farmers and landowners across Alberta like me trusted the oil and gas companies to clean up these wells on our lands once they've stopped producing, but many energy companies have betrayed Albertans and dumped their cleanup duties onto everyone else.' At the heart of C4RE's challenge is the orphan levy, which the regulator collects from oil and gas companies to fund the OWA. The group wants the AER to increase that levy to cover the cost of cleaning up sites for which the OWA is responsible. The levy was set at $144.45-million for the 2025-26 fiscal year. But that represents just 12 per cent of the $1.2-billion in closure liabilities and loans currently held by the OWA, according to an analysis by Drew Yewchuk, a former staff lawyer with the University of Calgary's Public Interest Law Clinic and an expert in liabilities regulation. Pointing to a March, 2023, Auditor-General's report, Mr. Yewchuk wrote that the AER's failure to adequately supervise the orphan program is a central reason for Alberta's massive orphan liability crisis, and the backlog of unreclaimed orphan sites currently on the books at the OWA. How did the regulator choose $144-million this year as the levy amount? 'We still don't know,' Mr. Yewchuk said, because 'the AER set the levy as they have always done – behind closed doors, with no public consultation and without hearing from the people who were most impacted." Mr. Yewchuk said Tuesday that the AER's approach to the orphan levy 'has been a catastrophic failure' that has essentially let oil and gas companies decide how much they want to pay each year for orphan well cleanup. In response to questions from The Globe and Mail about the regulatory appeal, the AER outlined its process for setting the levy, adding that the amount for 2025-26 was up 7 per cent from the prior fiscal year. But Mr. Popowich said the OWA has told him and other landowners that they will have to wait another 10 to 12 years for their wells to be cleaned up because it doesn't have enough funds. Alberta has some of the best laws governing oil and gas in the world, he said, but the sector simply isn't following them when it comes to funding orphan well cleanup. 'We are Albertans. We have certain rights. We should be treated with the same respect the producers are. We're not, and landowners are getting very upset out there.'
Globe and Mail
23-05-2025
- Business
- Globe and Mail
CRR Extends Reach into the Clearwater with Strategic Roadway Acquisition
CALGARY, AB, May 23, 2025 /CNW/ - Canadian Resource Roadways (CRR), a leader in resource infrastructure ownership and operations, is pleased to announce it has concluded a definitive agreement to acquire a 24 km section of the East Exit Road, together with ancillary existing roadways in Alberta'sClearwater region. The transaction, involving Sequoia Resources Corp. (by and through its trustee in bankruptcy PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc. through a court approved sale) and certain other vendors, marks another milestone in CRR's growth and geographic expansion. The transaction is expected to close by the end of May.
